Chapter 5 - THE BILLIONAIRE WHO LIED BY OMISSION
Emily held the photograph between shaking fingers.
“You were there.”
Daniel looked older suddenly.
“Yes.”
“You told me my father saved your life.”
“He did.”
“You told me Halpern stole the building.”
“He did.”
“But you forgot to mention you were standing twenty feet away when my father died?”
“I wasn’t there when he fell.”
“But you were there that day.”
“Yes.”
Emily wanted to throw the photograph at him.
Instead, she placed it carefully on the desk.
“What happened?”
Daniel took a slow breath.
“Halpern called me there that morning.”
“Why?”
“He wanted me to sign off on a transfer involving the Walnut Street properties.”
“My father’s property.”
“Yes.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
Daniel leaned against the desk.
“I had started to suspect Halpern was stealing from investors. Robert had contacted me two days earlier.”
“My father knew you?”
“Yes.”
“How well?”
“Well enough to know I owed him.”
Daniel looked at the old Carter’s Market sign.
“When I was broke, your father fed me for almost two months.”
Emily stared.
“He never mentioned you.”
“He didn’t want thanks.”
“That sounds like him.”
“He also loaned me three thousand dollars.”
Daniel smiled faintly.
“It might as well have been three million back then.”
“What did you do with it?”
“Made payroll.”
Emily’s anger softened for one second.
Then returned.
“And when he needed help?”
Daniel’s expression collapsed.
“I failed him.”
Silence.
“Tell me.”
“Robert discovered forged deeds and fraudulent loans. He planned to take everything to federal investigators. Halpern knew.”
“What did you do?”
“I told Robert to wait forty-eight hours.”
“Why?”
“I wanted to gather proof.”
Emily laughed bitterly.
“Forty-eight hours.”
“Yes.”
“My father died before he got them.”
Daniel looked down.
“Yes.”
For the first time, Emily saw why a billionaire might sit alone in a restaurant wearing an old coat.
Guilt.
Not hunger.
Not poverty.
Guilt.
“Did Halpern kill him?”
“I’ve spent nineteen years trying to prove it.”
Emily stared.
“Nineteen?”
Daniel nodded.
“Your father’s death destroyed the partnership. I walked away from Halpern. Years later I bought his assets whenever I could.”
“Including this block.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I promised Robert.”
Emily’s voice dropped.
“Promised him what?”
“That someday I would give it back.”
Before she could respond, Curtis spoke.
“My father kept something else.”
They both turned.
Curtis looked miserable.
“He made me swear never to touch it unless Halpern was dead.”
Daniel stiffened.
“Marcus has been dead seven years.”
“I know.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because my father said Halpern wasn’t the only person involved.”
Curtis moved to the old desk.
He reached underneath and pressed something.
A hidden compartment opened.
Inside lay a cassette recorder.
And one tape.
On the label, written in shaky handwriting:
ROBERT CARTER - 3/17/07 - 8:43 A.M.
The morning he died.
Emily picked it up.
“Is this his voice?”
Curtis nodded.
Daniel found an old recorder on the shelf.
He inserted the tape.
Static filled the room.
Then Emily heard her father speak for the first time in nineteen years.
“If something happens to me today, Marcus Halpern is responsible.”
Emily covered her mouth.
The tape continued.
“But Marcus isn’t the one I’m afraid of.”
A pause.
Then Robert Carter said a name.
A name Emily knew.
A name she had heard her entire childhood.
“Her mother, Susan, is the one who signed the first papers.”
May you like
Emily stopped breathing.
Her mother had helped steal their own property.
